Tabla
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The evolution of the table, its various gharanas
Suanshu Khurana, Jan 8, 2025: The Indian Express
The popularity of the tabla can be traced to the reign of the Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah Rangeela, but there are various origin stories about the instrument
Dhrupad and khayal, pakhawaj and tabla
In a lecture delivered after he won the prestigious Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy in 2022, Hussain had said: “Tabla is one of the youngest instruments. It is only about 250 years old.”
The word tabla comes from the Arabic word ‘tabl’ which means drum. Hussain traced the origin story of the tabla through the evolution of the styles of dhrupad and khayal.
He recalled that the tradition of North Indian classical music was “close to about 800 years old in this particular form”. Thereafter, “changes occurred, and interactions took place between different cultures and…genres [which] allowed the form to mutate and a new musical idea” of dhrupad emerged.
However, dhrupad was an onerous genre that was challenged by the more modern khayal – which means imagination, and implies improvisation, Hussain said.
Khayal came into being after the temple traditions of dhrupad and prabandh gayaki were fused with qalbana, the Sufi music that was later called qawwali, by the 14th century Sufi saint and musician Amir Khusrau.
At this time, the pakhawaj was typically used in performances; the tabla would not enter the picture until a few centuries later. The association of the tabla with Amir Khusrau (who was patronised by Sultan Alauddin Khalji (1296-1316) of Delhi) notwithstanding, the instrument is not mentioned in the Ain-i-Akbari, the authoritative administrative record of the reign of Akbar, written by his minister Abul Fazl at the end of the 16th century.
In his book Hindustani Music Today (2012), musicologist Deepak Raja wrote: “In the emerging post-dhrupad scenario, Hindustani music needed a percussion partner of greater agility, delicate playing technique, and softer output… “Historic developments in the tabla idiom took place during the reign of Emperor Muhammad Shah of Delhi (1719-1748), whose court was also host to the launch of the sitar, and the maturation of khayal vocalism.”
Muhammad Shah was an aesthete, and a great patron of music and the other arts, because of which he was referred to as “Rangeela”, the Colourful. In their book Koh-i-noor: The Story of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond (2016), William Dalrymple and Anita Anand wrote “it was Muhammad Shah who brought the sitar and the tabla out of the folk milieu and into his court.”
According to Raja, “The musician responsible for the percussion revolution was Siddhar Khan Dhadhi. He was an accomplished pakhawaj player, who translated the forearm-powered open-palm pakhawaj idiom into the wrist-and-fingers idiom of the tabla, thus creating an entirely new percussion language.
“His students spread to other major centres of music, and adapted the style to respond to local influences and aesthetic values.”
Current popularity of tabla, its various gharanas
In the 1950s and 1960s, accompanying musicians did not enjoy much popularity or social stature. Their names did not appear on records or posters, and they were paid much less than the main artiste. Tabla players were made to sit behind the main performer, and “tabalchi” was sometimes used in a derogatory manner.
In the mid-1960s, Ustad Alla Rakha decided to concentrate solely on classical music. He began accompanying artistes such as sarod maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan’s father Hafiz Ali Khan and Bade Ghulam Ali Khan.
He worked and travelled extensively with Pandit Ravi Shankar, who often highlighted Alla Rakha’s brilliant contribution while explaining the concept of rhythm in Indian classical music to Western audiences.
Along with Pandit Kishan Maharaj and Pandit Samta Prasad of Banaras gharana, Ustad Alla Rakha elevated tabla from being just an accompanying instrument to a solo instrument. Others who increased the popularity of the tabla included Ustad Ahmed Jan Khan ‘Thirakwa’ and Pandit Anokhelal Mishra. The work of these early masters was taken forward in later decades by the likes of Ustad Zakir Hussain and Ustad Shafaat Ahmed Khan.
Tabla gharanas are different from vocal and other instrumental gharanas and rest on three broad principles: the technique, the style of composition (language/ construction/ phraseology of the tabla syllable in various compositions), and the individual philosophy of the great masters of each school.
Six gharanas of tabla are known by the places where they evolved: Punjab, Purab (also known as the Banaras gharana), Delhi, Ajrara, Lucknow and Farrukhabad.
The baaj (playing style) of the first two gharanas is more pakhawaj-based. While Purab’s crisp and clear sounds are very well suited to Kathak, in the Punjab gharana, a mathematical approach, with difficult divisions of beats, is preferred.
Punjab had offshoots or sub-gharanas such as Talwandi and Naiwala. All the gharanas are inspired by each other.
